Seoul Food

This morning I made a bucketful of kimchi[1] or I hope I did. My first attempt at making sauerkraut was not too successful - not enough salt perhaps - but later batches were excellent. Much better than anything I’ve bought.

I read about kimchi years ago - probably on the Korea Foods website - and bought a small pack. I don’t remember being particularly enamoured of the experience, my abiding memory is of its incendiary nature.

Kimchi was on my shopping list when we visited the new Mitcham branch of Korea Foods, determined to give this legendary food another try. We were cruising the aisles when Marie pointed to a gallon sized clear plastic bucket containing what appeared to be anatomy. “What’s that?” she grimaced. “Just what I’m looking for!” I grinned, “Kimchi, the national food of Korea”. I picked up a smaller jar, just in case.

I don’t know what the last lot was but this was delicious, the rate it disappeared at was ample evidence. We both declared it addictive.

I had an infobinge on The WelkinReticulum[2] for recipes and discovered a few gems. Koreans have the same attitude to buying kimchi that I have to mayonnaise and humous (amongst other things) “You don’t buy it, you make it. The stuff in the shops isn’t even what it says on the tin!”. I’ve read every recipe and watched countless YouTube videos and I’ve assimilated the general process - resistance is futile!

Kimchi recipes vary from region to region and even from family to family. Everyone has their own particular wrinkle or ‘secret’ ingredient. I found that the jar I bought was Mat Kimchi, or easy kimchi. The cabbage was ready chopped into bite sized chunks for easy making and eating. Poggi kimchi is the more traditional form which uses quartered cabbage formed into little parcels. This is the method I chose.

I trundled along to Korea Foods again on Tuesday to buy the ingredients:

• Napa Cabbage (a.k.a. Chinese leaf)
• Solar salt (a.k.a. coarse sea salt)
• more chilli powder than I’ve ever bought in one go
• green onions (a.k.a. scallions or spring onions)
• daikon radish - I was hoping for real Korean radish which is halfway between a daikon radish and a white turnip.

Once home and the booty disgorged I realised that I didn’t have receptacles large enough to deal with this quantity of stuff so I shoved the cabbages into the washing machine - there was nowhere else to put them - and postponed the project.

The next day I went to the place I felt sure would provide what I needed, big plastic mixing bowls and large glass jars. Destination Upper Tooting Road! There are so many diverse ethnic shops there, one of them must have what I was after. An Indian catering supplier had both.

The large plastic mixing bowls I’d seen people using on YouTube turned out to be dough bowls, and came with a bonus lid. They also had a goodly range of glass jars but what caught my eye was a large stainless steel milk churn, it was only two quid more than the largest glass jar and I couldn’t resist it.

I won’t bore you with the procedure (yet) as there’s so much on The WelkinReticulum. Here are a couple of the more interesting links I’ve come across:

• Interesting documentary on Korean national telly about the annual winter kimchi making - Gimjang - which was given UNESCO World cultural heritage status recently. This is a lovely insight into Korean culture, wonderful people and some stunning imagery. Watch out for the Buddhist monastery in the snow, and the pots, gorgeous pots! The Culinary Art of Kimchi
• This woman seems very popular on YouTube - 2 million viewers and counting - she made me smile. Traditional recipe

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1. Korean pickled cabbage made using a lacto-fermentation process just like sauerkraut.  ↩
   
2. The Internet - literally SkyNet (“I’ll be back” - oh, looks like you are Arnie!) I reckon if I use this term often enough others might pick it up and use it too, not as catchy as The InnerChoobs (one of Awa Nick’s) but hey.  ↩